IF players want an easy ride, Boro’s not the place to be, warned Gordon Strachan today.

The no-nonsense Scot is spending the final few days of the season putting his squad through their paces.

In any spare moments, Strachan is also compiling a short-list of the players he wants to sign for next season’s promotion campaign and assessing who he will move on after Sunday’s match at Leicester.

“There will be new faces (next season), that’s for sure,” he told the Gazette.

“It all depends on who wants to stay, who wants to work hard enough, they have to understand what we want to do, it’s not going to be easy for them.

“If you want an easy ride, there are other clubs for you. If you want to stay at the same level of ability and fitness, you might have to go to another club, but I’m not accepting everybody stays the same, especially for the younger ones.

“Even for the older ones, I want to see them keep improving. Like Robbo (Barry Robson), he’s desperate to get even fitter and better.”

To all intents and purposes, Boro began pre-season training after the West Brom defeat and continued putting in the hard yards this week.

After the Leicester game, the players will be given a three week break before reporting back for another week’s assessment.

Strachan is determined to get the make up of his squad absolutely spot on for next season’s make-or-break campaign.

Refusing to mince his words, he explained his motives for formulating his intensive plan of action.

“I’ve got to test their characters,” he said. “I need to weed out the mentally and physically weak. Or I make the mentally or physically weak stronger.

“In matches we often have a right good go, but a right good go is not always enough in this league, you have to have ability and mental strength.

“That’s why we started work last week. I had to find out before we go away, who needs what, who needs driving, who’s self-motivated, who needs to be fitter to pass the ball better, all these things we’ll be doing and then we’ll have a three week break, come back and we will be working very, very hard.”

The fact that several of the current squad may not be at the club to kick-off the new season complicates matters.

That’s the issue Strachan is aware of and he admits it’s a far from ideal situation.

“To be fair there’s a lot of big players whose contracts are up. They are good lads but the uncertainty in the dressing room doesn’t help.

“When Jonno was here, he had his contract up and we’ve had Gary O’Neil’s situation to deal with.

"Riggott, Aliadiere, Pogatetz, there’s a lot of big players whose contracts are up and that’s not easy.

"Plus the fact; I don’t know how many loan players we’ve had in this year, but I’ve found that difficult to deal with.

"So it was like a revolving door that dressing room. What we want to do is stop that revolving door and get ready for next season.

"When next season starts we don't want to be doing what we did last year with players whose contracts are running out.

"I don’t think it’s conducive to a relaxed dressing room.

“I can then have peace of mind and the players can have peace of mind.

"I find it difficult to deal with on-loan players, because they are not yours,” he added.

“You can't put them under the same pressure as the other players because they are at the club to do you a favour. We want the squad to be more solid.

"You look at West Brom, the squad of players who have just won promotion is the group that went up two years ago.”

Strachan, meanwhile, is keeping a close eye on Rhys Williams’ injury situation.

The Australian international has an ongoing pelvic condition and won’t play again this season, but is hopeful of going to the World Cup.

The Boro boss is urging caution, saying: “He’s got the World Cup but we’ve got to protect a real good player, our young player of the year.

“We have to work with the injury and have to find a cure for it. And then we have to get together - our staff, the Australian staff - and say ‘this is the condition he’s in’, and decide what’s best for the kid’s future.”